Yesterday was pretty depressing.
We had to come to terms with the fact it's either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt who will be our next prime minister.
We had to hear the EU telling both of them, before they even take office, that their claim that the EU will renegotiate the withdrawal agreement with the UK is just a fiction of their own imagining.
We had to learn that Boris Johnson can have the police called by a neighbour to a domestic incident at his address.
And we have to see Mark Field MP with his hands on the throat of a Greenpeace protestor.
As days in politics go it was not good. Which is, maybe, why I did not write much.
There was, though, another reason for not writing. I was (as is pretty commonplace right now) working quite hard. A lot of yesterday was spent on work I have been doing seeking to reconcile financial accounting as it is right now with the demands of climate change. The work has been done at the invitation of Rupert Read at the University of East Anglia and Aled Jones of Anglia Ruskin University. And, in a nutshell, I have not been able to achieve that reconciliation.
I will publish more on this next Thursday when I will be making a presentation on this issue at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. For now suffice to say that accounting as it now cannot survive if we are to bring the impact of climate change within it. Quite literally, IFRS accounting and accounting for climate change are at such odds with each other that only one can win, and it has to be the need to account for the consequences of climate change.
Which brings me back to the event that Greenpeace disrupted. They had a message to deliver. It was that everything has to change. Zero carbon by 2050 is not enough. The pretence that if we only have more electric cars everything will be OK is ludicrous. The idea that a government can still contemplate airport expansion is staggering. And it is obvious that a government that consciously decided to undermine the solar power sector in this country whilst going out of its way to promote nuclear power is one that is not fit for office. Greenpeace wanted to say that.
Amongst the many things that I am angry with Mark Field for is the fact that he diverted attention from that message, albeit temporarily, even if the consequences for him are, I hope, lasting and rightly so.
There is just one thing I do, however, accept about his behaviour. I accept that he was angry. He managed it entirely inappropriately, but that's not to deny that he was angry. And it's important to ask why, because confrontation between those like the Greenpeace protestors and the likes of Field are going to become much more commonplace. This is especially true when we know that those on the political right have ceased to be rational and are entirely willing to make wholly illogical decisions (such as that to leave the EU without a deal and to break up the Union without further consideration as to consequence) in pursuit of mythical gains to their own supposed short term (because they tend to be older) benefit.
Field is living on the basis of a myth. It is that whatever happens the climate crisis will not impact him, his power, his finances, his lifestyle and the infrastructure of power that has served him so very well, despite his being a man, I have long thought, of remarkably little talent. And Greenpeace rocked his faith in that myth. His anger revealed just how unsure he is the foundations of that myth now. As a result he reacted violently, irrationally, and entirely according to type in assaulting those who threaten his personal advantage, however shaky its foundations. He lashed out, wholly inappropriately at a woman (and you cannot for a moment think he'd have done the same thing to a larger and younger man, so this was an action based on gender discrimination, in my opinion). He deserves all the condemnation he gets for that.
But we also need to understand that the power elite really are exceptionally fragile now, and so will be this unpredictable. They've been rocked in so many ways. I was amused to hear a story this week about the anger some of them feel about losing the argument on tax abuse (which they know they have), despite their belief that all their resources should have guaranteed they would win. And climate is going to be much bigger than that.
I have had concern about climate change since the 1970s, when I read E J Mishan's book ‘The costs of economic growth' whilst still at school. Too many decades have passed to reach the crisis point we are at now. We have had a wasted decade since we first wrote the Green New Deal. 2019 is going to pass with almost nothing significant achieved to tackle the climate crisis. And every day the risk increases. And the likes of Mark Field will deny it, violently if need be, as we have seen.
But try as I might, I cannot avoid the conclusion that everything must change. Not a bit, but fundamentally. And by that I do not just mean that we need some more car charging points and new packaging. The whole infrastructure of our society has to be different, right down to its accounting and what it thinks business is for. And those who have won from the existing structures of power are going to get very angry about that. Mark Field will not be the last to do so. My hope is that it will not get very much uglier. And that black tie and red dresses might remain the preferred combat gear. But I stress, there is only one possible winner here if there is still to be life itself. And Mark Field is very definitely on the losing side.
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Some of this has been running across my mind for a while now. Mostly regarding transport . Each day I walk in my small Scottish town I am mentally and aurally pummelled by the relentless traffic passing ( we do have a by-pass ) Can’t even hear my thoughts. Most cars with one driver and no passengers. Enormous vehicles delivering goods to the shops – in a mostly identical route to the railway alongside. Have you seen the size of agricultural machinery on our roads? Giants roaming our land. I suppose my vague hope is a steep rise in fuel after we Brexit which will force some on to public transport. I lived in Glasgow when we had a fuel crisis ( 2000? ) and the roads grew magically quieter.
I understand that many no longer work near their homes, public transport ( certainly railways in Scotland ) is not up to the job. We may not have a choice in how we move around.
I’m in agreement with those who challenge the oft repeated ‘we must all do our bit’ with ‘it is the governments and international groups who must take the strong leadership’. My re-using a plastic bag until it has holes in it will not do the trick. The powers that be ( and we can vote you out again ) must get serious and show us radical policies – and then do them.
Richard you have a much louder voice and wider readership than many of us who do care about these issues. Thank you for continuing the fight.
It’s depressing sometimes
But I will continue
All I heard on the radio yesterday was the apologists for Field, all of whom sounded very unconvincing to be honest.
I agree with you – he saw a woman and went for it. Such bravery!
I have to question those who drive around on their own in truck sized Range Rovers and Jeeps whom I saw on the road far too often. And what is it with Audi drivers? Does the brand attract such aggressive ignorant drivers who are content to ignore speed restrictions or is it my imagination? At least it makes me feel a little better for being conned into buying a diesel Mondeo. Oh – and weren’t we all conned? But no one went to prison.
We have all read about the fall of past civilisations at school, college and university. And now we seem to be amidst our own.
So my suggestion is this: Hold fast. Focus on capturing what happens and how this unfolds. At least if we do this, we have something pass on as a warning to generations to come.
It is down to decent, caring empathetic people like you Richard (and many here and elsewhere ) who will do this – not preening, self regarding elitist mercenaries like Johnson, Farage, etc., (the list could go on).
We are all in this together – those of us who care, that is
Alas, Richard, the “if” in your penultimate sentence remains the most frightening and uncertain of all our current conditionals – and you are accordingly right to draw our attention to the well-springs of angry insecurity by which our present masters are now so frequently shaken. Field’s frightened aggression is as irrational, given his public position, as is Boris’s apparetnly uncontrollable domestic rancour and its intemperate expression.
But will such ugly manifestations bring their rattled authors any real penalty, let alone chasten and alter the behaviours of the powerful among whose ranks they shelter? Probably not even the first of these will happen – and the second, by past experience, seems vanishingly unlikely. History is a melancholy guide to such situations. How could the excesses of ancien regime France have continued or the Tsar’s family delusions have persisted unabated? Yet they did – and now we are learning the helpless lessons of the lived answer. History – in the sense of the stories that people/societies/elites tell themselves as their ‘owned’ backstory – has too often proved to be ossified beyond the willingness of the powerful to re-examine its ‘truths’ and their basis in rationally evaluated facts and experience. Whole societal crises can – and have – generated conditions and fractures in an established order, which have led on to genuine re-evaluations – but such events/epochs are rare, almost to the point of singularity.
We now need one such – or there is only disaster ahead. What happens to Field and to Boris is, on one hand, minor; but if that is all that it is, I fear it will be revelatory.
Thanks
Appreciated
Jonathon Cook writes compellingly about this, also the role of the media in framing the debate.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2019-06-22/mark-field-assault-sidetracked/?fbclid=IwAR06YXVRxOeyrl4Rvov4pY_-zA32X6rQpqqefukZhSdS8kWaPga2baiyOzw
A good article
Well worth reading
And his selection of tweets was very telling, and sickening
Brilliant PT
This is exactly what I was thinking about yesterday when listening to Any Questions on Radio 4. A member of the audience asked the ‘panel’ about the MoS behaviour towards the ‘innocent’ protester.
I thought – what an odd question? There was nothing innocent about the protest. The young woman knew what she was doing and she was right in my view to be doing it – that is – attempting to confront a mollycoddled group of unaccountable, unelected monied movers, shakers and high rollers about the consequences of their stupid, short term investment decisions.
In other words, the politics of protest (and the reasons and necessity of this political action) were completely ignored and the behaviour of just one man came to the fore – it became identity politics – man versus woman – rather than something created by a much broader issue – the fate of the environment and our fate too as a species.
The framing is all wrong. To me it looks like some form of denial about the climate has set in.
Agreed
JC says it straight always, that is why he is no longer published in the mainstream media.
His positions on the City, the MSM, the Israeli government policies etc – especially the BBC and Guardian is unequivocal – I hope you concur.
As for the Tory farce – i stick by my long standing opinion on who has been the real power in the Cabinet for quite a few years now.
I am afraid I do not agree
Corbyn is a prevaricator who has been a disaster for Labour on Brexit
He has not always done well in other issues either
Sorry, but it’s make believe to think otherwise
I wish it were different – but I have known him for quite a while and that is how he is
JC = Jonathan Cook in my comment above. It is an easy mistake to make.
It was Jonathan’s opinions on the subjects i mentioned from the article that was linked to, that I was asking whether you concurred with?
Do you?
Actually. Jonathan’s has also written numeous times on Corbyn and his detractors. I recommend looking some of these up.
I don’t want to get into an argument/discourse here with you about Jezza and the fact he campaigned for remain and has only followed the collective policy since on that and other contentious issues (such as Nuclear Weapons).
All the best.
Aha…..
Richard, you say:
“And it is obvious that a government that consciously decided to undermine the solar power sector in this country whilst going out of its way to promote nuclear power is one that is not fit for office. Greenpeace wanted to say that.”
Let’s not forget their insane obsession with encouraging fracking – known to be environmentally damaging in itself (increased earthquakes in Lancashire, I believe? From Cuadrilla?), but entirely unjustified, given the fact that 80% of KNOWN fossil fuel reserves should stay in the ground.
For if 80% of KNOWN reserves should stay in the ground, then 100% of UNKNOWN/NEW reserves should, so that EVERY exploration for new reserves – as ALL fracking explorations are – is ENTIRELY illicit under the demands of climate protection.
I agree Andrew
And the most massive waste or resources in itself
It may be the depression talking – but I think we’ve no chance of making the changes we need to make. The problem is the rich & powerful and the fact that they can buy influence – governments, even.
The huge change I think is needed (Can it be done? SHOULD it be done? Is it even necessary? I don’t know.) is to move from a monetary system to a resource-based economy. You can see the problem. (Not talking about the viability of the idea – like I said, “I don’t know”.)
The major problem is that this change HAS to be global. I think if we’re to stand a chance of having our grandchildren see old age, this – or a global change like it – has to happen.
Anyway, I’m not an economist so …
All the best Richard and thanks for the work you do.
One problem is that hardly any politicians have any scientific background – and certainly almost none have studied earth science.
No generation has ever experienced the kind of change now happening to earth systems.
Nothing like this has happened for tens of millions of years.
Previous warming events of this type, like the end-Permian, the PETM, the Toarcian, and the ETM2 are seen in the geochemical record as negative carbon isotope excursions.
These NCIEs mark sudden releases of sequestered carbon, are always associated with global warming, and with extinction events of varying severity.
The Earth has been running experiments on the effect of CO2 for hundreds of millions of years.
For example, coal was formed as part of the long-term carbon cycle.
Rapidly returning all that carbon to the atmosphere in the form of CO2 destabilises that long-term cycle.
When igneous activity heated up coal seams in the end-Permian event, the extra CO2 produced by the process caused global warming and ocean acidification, and these led to extinctions.
There’s an interesting paper on that –
“Initial pulse of Siberian Traps sills as the trigger of the end-Permian mass extinction” – Burgess et al, 2017.
Learning some earth science would help politicians grasp their 21st century responsibilities.
Have you considered this report regarding accounting for climate change
https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-Accounting-for-Climate-Change-SP/$FILE/EY-Accounting-for-Climate-Change-SP.PDF
I have seen it
It is timid, and literally peripheral to the problem – leaving the core of accounting untouched
As such I think it fails
I’ve put next Thursday on my calendar. As Peter Drucker said (more or less), “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Everything must change. Indeed, but we can’t even make sense of the changes needed without a unifying principle and I think that needs to be the answer we give to an expanded version of Richard’s question “what is society for?”.
It can no longer be expansion into new lands, instead we need to retract giving more space to the rest of nature. It can no longer be expansion of anything material. And it certainly can’t be imperial conquest.
So I think it has to be the wellbeing of all in a sustainable world. For now and, I think, for my lifetime, the priority has to be sustainability and this will produce greater wellbeing if we do it right.
Agreed
Pretty much summarises my argument in The Courageous State
Amen.
As I know you like an occasional appropriate song choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgX2EAdvFyw
That may get posted….
Thanks
On how best to bring finance and accounting into the 21st century:
Do you have a framework or problem that you could post for attempts and thoughts from your readers? I am sure I am not the only one who would be more than keen to have a go at the challenge, and I am sure that we collectively have a lot more time than you to spend.
I’m sorry – you might need to be more explicit in your request
“A lot of yesterday was spent on work I have been doing seeking to reconcile financial accounting as it is right now with the demands of climate change. … . And, in a nutshell, I have not been able to achieve that reconciliation.”
I’m am sure there are a lot of people on here who would be keen to see the task at hand and have a go at producing an answer. Perhaps in the form of a competition. I am sure you’re vastly more qualified than us but we equally have much more time on our hands.
Can we discuss after this is published?